These lists usually have a little negative connotation or recount pure Italian absurdities… But here are some that just make me smile and bring me to a happy place 🙂
You can buy pizza by the slice (relatively cheaply) on just about every corner (and while all are not the best quality, even the mediocre pack a good punch)
Gelato tastes like its been made by the gods.
You can go shopping until 8pm or 9pm daily at most department stores and street vendors are open until the wee hours of the morning.
Wine and good wine is cheap.
You are spoilt to a ridiculous level with food and the availability of fresh produce that in many other countries is either ridiculously expensive, limited in availability and regarded as ‘gourmet’.
Anytime from about 5:30pm till 9ish is drinking – aperitivo – time.
You are surrounded and enveloped by beauty, art and culture & living history.
Ok and now.. keeping with the consistency of my last “You know you’re in Italy when…” posts, here are a few classics for the vault:
You have to pay €0.60 to use the toilet at Tiburtina station but unlike everywhere else, you receive a receipt!
Your male hairdresser keeps hitting on you and thinks its perfectly normal to invite you to dine with his family!
You have to pay for goods on consignment even though postage has already been paid!! I had to pay customs entry costs for a package clonazepam online arriving to my door (and which has already heftily paid for from Australia!)
You get asked – no more like put on the stand – constantly about what you earn, what you own, how much rent you pay. Italians have to know everything! E basta with the inquisition!
Everyone is weight conscious. In fact, did you know that cellulite is a disease in Italy!!??
Your beauty therapist doesn’t hesitate in telling you if you’ve lost or put on weight.. “E ti vedo meno gonfia questa settimana!” – “hmm I see you’re a little less bloated this week!”
Speaking of beauty (while I’m getting waxed!) my therapist will just casually walk in and out of the room and sometimes leave the door ajar without a thought!
Noticed more than one taxi driver (and other drivers) have a special custom made belt buckle that locks into the console so they don’t have to hear that annoying car beep when you haven’t got your seatbelt on (I actually think this one is genius.. Not that I condone not wearing of a seatbelt!)
Italians complain. A lot. I didn’t know until living here that, ‘cervicale‘ just means sore neck – the serious way it gets mentioned had me thinking it was a chronic or terminal disease!!
These are things that make me love and hate this place all at the very same time!
Signing off from Roma,
Baci Maria
